I started working on my Big Boy. I am very fortunate to have a real Big Boy # 4012 at the Steam Town museum that is around a 40 minute drive from my home. I went and took lots of photos for reference, and I know that I will be taking many more. It will be a very challenging, but fun model to design. I made a four wheel chassis to test, and see how it runs. I only used one bogie for power pick up, so it is running sporadically right now. I am going to test it with the tender I am making for my new 4-6-2 locomotive. I am hoping it will run on the 120mm radius track.

Good luck with this Joe. It would be great to see a T gauge Big Boy. There is someone on the T gauge Facebook page who has done the outside wheel motion for a Big Boy. Don't know what has happened about that, it's sometime since I looked at it, and this forum actually.

Addendum to the power pick up: why do you not lead the current over the steam wheels? They are magnetic, so that steel wires must only to be slightly spring-mounted. They do not even have to have mechanical pressure as they are attracted to the wheels by the magnetic force. Applying power through non-driven wheels only causes additional friction or unreasonable distance between the locomotive and the tender.

of course it is up to you whose advice you obey. That of a model dreamer, who has not yet built a single locomotive, or that of a modeler who has got 7 steam locomotives on T Gauge tracks to drive.
If you have any plans to continue building the Big Boy.

I say goodbye to this forum, where the freedom of the word does not endure!

If you are still reading this: I saw your post and also found your tone a bit too harsh for my liking.

Having said so, I think it would be a pity if you would abandon this forum. Those who are familiar with your work know what you have achieved in the area of T gauge. I think that the few of us that seem to follow this forum could benefit greatly from your expertise if you were willing to share it. And a lively constructive debate might even attract more people.

The one concrete wish I would have is that you or some of the other mechanics experts here would come up with a steam loco plan and instructions which would be accessible to average modellers like me.

if someone writes nonsense, must be allowed to call this as such! And I absolutely hate it when someone censors my words!
If this is a children's forum, in which all must be very lovely and kindly, the administrator should write it high on top! Then I had me not registered!

Kind regards
Uwe

P.S. That was really my last post here! If you still have questions to me, you can ask them in the T Gauge Forum Germany (also in English language).
The T Gauge music plays where I am! This will not change in the next few years!

Sorry I have been off of the forum for a while and missed reading these posts.

I appreciate all of the advice on this project. We all basically learn from each otherâ€™s work, and try to inspire others to do the same. Using the springs and picking power from the bogieâ€™s has been working great on my Pennsylvania 4-6-2 pacific locomotive design, and I may still use it on my Big boy. Only the rear Â½ of the locomotive is shown in the photo. I was planning on using a pick up from the front wheels as well as the rear wheels, and maybe even the tender! My current layout does not have any turnouts or isolated track, but I plan on building a larger one so I should make sure the locomotive can handle it.

It is all about testing what works and Siegfried and Uwe both have some good advice.

Uwe, I agree with Chris in that you should still write and post your work in this forum. We are all a small group of friends, and we need to help grow and promote TGauge!

Hello Joe, a photo at the right time, and I would have understood right away that Siegfried with "points" means turnouts. But you also have strange terms for some things in English language!
The electrical problem zone of such points/turnouts can be relatively easily shortened to about 5mm, see attached photo.